From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ryan Underwood Subject: Re: Re: [forum] Re: Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license. Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 16:33:35 -0600 Sender: linux-fbdev-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <20040201223335.GB16019@dbz.icequake.net> References: <20040131113753.GA19133@iliana> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a" Return-path: Received: from sc8-sf-mx1-b.sourceforge.net ([10.3.1.11] helo=sc8-sf-mx1.sourceforge.net) by sc8-sf-list1.sourceforge.net with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1AnQ9p-0003Ja-SR for linux-fbdev-devel@lists.sourceforge.net; Sun, 01 Feb 2004 14:33:37 -0800 Received: from 216-229-91-229-empty.fidnet.com ([216.229.91.229] helo=mail.icequake.net ident=postfix) by sc8-sf-mx1.sourceforge.net with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1AnQ9p-0004eX-DH for linux-fbdev-devel@lists.sourceforge.net; Sun, 01 Feb 2004 14:33:37 -0800 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Errors-To: linux-fbdev-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net List-Unsubscribe: , List-Id: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: To: devel@xfree86.org Cc: linux-fbdev-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, forum@xfree86.org --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 01:06:23PM +0000, Andrew C Aitchison wrote: > > And, have you asked the mgafb driver author about this ? > >=20 > > You can hardly complain about lack of back traffic if you didn't ask him > > about it, and if you did, it would be interesting to this discussion to > > know what the problems where. >=20 > "The Author" ? > This is open source code; there may be 27 authors of the relevant file. > In XFree86 code I wouldn't know how to find the author of a file without > looking at that file. My {limited ,mis}understanding of clean room coding= =20 > makes me wary of reading any source unless I know that its licence will= =20 > allow me to do what I wish. The only authors that legally matter are the ones listed in the copyright notices. There are three copyright notices in the matroxfb stuff: one is Petr, another is Gerd Knorr and the other is Matrox. I'm sure Petr has a pretty clear idea what he wrote, and I doubt Gerd would get an attitude with you either over anything he did. Since you haven't even inquired about it, you don't have much to complain about as I see it. > OK. So I've probably been paranoid and lazy, but if the fbdev licence=20 > had been compatible with the XFree86 one, I would have done the work. > As it is the bar was raised high enough to stop me. Or maybe the license incompatibility was simply a convenient way to cop out of doing some work? > > > So, for one developer at least, the reason there has been no traffic > > > from fbdev to XFree86 is *directly* because of the licence issue. You can't copy and paste code. You _can_ rewrite code. Hardware interfaces, trivial routines, and problems for which there exist only one or a few obvious ways of solving them are all examples of where copyright does not apply. Porting any code from fbdev to a XFree86 driver *will* involve substantial rewriting. I know this because I'm currently doing it for the mga driver. > > Yeah, but again, was it so because of a definite will on the fbdev > > authors part, or because you didn't ask him ? >=20 > Isn't the aim of open source licences is to allow people to use the code > without tracking down the author and obtaining permission ? No. The aim of open source licenses is to allow people to use the code _under the terms the author chose_ without tracking down the author and obtaining extra permissions. > I can do that with closed source. I don't see how you have greater freedom with closed source licenses, but feel free to elaborate. --=20 Ryan Underwood, --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: Digital signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAHX6/IonHnh+67jkRAtv+AJ9hKM4vdrzfdDuPmq0hsvGtDo8BhACgiw7X CDeOACy/9wv4sDdne0jkXaQ= =hXZF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Pd0ReVV5GZGQvF3a-- ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn